Internet and Television in your car, boat or RV

You can’t fix stupid

Sometimes you find out about new technology the old fashioned way. My girlfriend, Miriam, and her husband, Tom, own a boat. They spent every weekend that they were home on the boat. Tom was on the internet all the time and decided that he wanted the internet on the boat. With TracNet he wouldn’t have to be hooked up to the dock, he could be floating around, typing away.

Internet and television have crept into our everyday lives. We carry cellphones that can access our email and play our favorite television shows. Our cars have DVDs in the back seats to keep our kids entertained on a long trip to Grandma’s house. TracVision and TracNet have taken mobility and accessibility a step further.

TracNet is the first in-motion product to offer consumers easy-to-use, high-speed Internet access on the television screens installed in cars ($1,995), boats ($2,395), and RVs ($2,395). There is a $9.95 monthly fee to connect you to TracNet 100 s Mobile Internet Receiver with MSN TV service in-motion access to Web browsing, Microsoft Windows Media Player, MSN Mail, and MSN Messenger, digital photo viewing, MSN Video, and MSN Radio with two-way connections made possible by broadband( Evolution-Data Optimized) EVDO cellular services. EVDO is a Verizon service, which means if you don’t have cellular service you probably won’t have internet service.

Tom and Miriam also owned an RV and traveled around the United States. It was easy for them to find the closest RV park on the internet as they traveled, or watch the local news for traffic jams. It was worth the monthly fees to them to have this technology. They could camp out at night, Miriam watching while Tom typed away on the internet. Have you ever wanted to make a 3 hour trip to your folk’s house on a holiday, but your husband wanted to stay home and watch a local football game? KVH s TracVision ($2,995) allows live DIRECTV programming right on the video screens in cars. For the first time, you can drive to your parent’s house while your husband sit’s in the back of the Hummer H2 and watch that all-important football game on a local channel.

According to KVH Industries spokesman Chris Watson, the Navigation system is driving disabled, so the driver cant access the internet or television while driving. There are 48 states that have a law of some type that says that drivers cannot watch television or access the internet in the front seat of their car when driving. Watson believes this will be the norm for large vehicles, “Once you have a screen in your car, you want to live content with access to the world.”

Tom and Miriam? They sold their boat and RV. It appears that all that connection to the outside world included another woman. Miriam found an email that bounced back after Tim mistyped the email address. New technology can’t help you out of those old fashioned mistakes.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.